Christopher Byford - Den of Smoke - Absolutely gripping fantasy page turner filled with magic and betrayal

Blakestone narrowed his good eye. Disgusted at the outcome of this, he nudged Cole by the shoulder upon passing and muttered in his ear. ‘He might need a reason to make that head of yours a good deal lighter,’ he venomously hissed, ‘but you’ve given me mine already.’

The first thing that Cole woke to was an acrid blast of smoke over his face. Or more specifically, it was the smoke that drove him to wake up. Immediately he lurched up in the simple bed he had been allocated and hacked the air from his lungs. When untainted air found its way to his throat, Cole cracked his eyes open and sneered at the culprit.

‘Good morning, sleepyhead. We were wondering if you were ever going to wake up,’ Blakestone taunted. He drew his thick cigar back to his leathery lips, punctuated with a toothy smile. Cole wafted away the haze between them.

‘Like anybody could sleep with that crap in their face. Do you have to do that?’

‘Yep.’

‘Could you do it elsewhere?’

Blakestone took another slow draw and exhausted it above him with the cockiest of smiles. The ash fluttered onto Cole’s cheek.

‘Nope.’

‘That figures. What time is it at least?’

‘Dawn. Or thereabouts.’

‘Civilized people sleep during this time,’ Cole protested, wiping the accumulated debris from his eyes. His ears adjusted to the vigorous chatter that was loud enough to be picked up, but dull enough to be a droll.

‘What is that racket ?’ he called in borderline frustration.

‘Downstairs is a machine shop. There’s some thirty who work there, putting together clothes, that sort of thing. It makes the place look legitimate, so our coming and going isn’t suspicious.’

‘They’re too loud and it’s too early for my liking.’

‘Not for what we have planned. Come on, up.’ Blakestone hoisted himself to his feet, forcing the releasing springs to jolt back to their normal position. ‘You’re a Jackrabbit now. We don’t do lie-ins. Complaining, neither.’

Cole begrudgingly took leave of his bed and wiped his face with a hand. He staggered to a dirtied window and wiped the dust, peering out into the streets. It was relatively deserted with the exception of the convoy of stallholders, each transporting their goods by cart and horse to the marketplace and bazaar. Birds had only just started to rise with their songs greeting the rusty hues of the flaring sky.

The safe house was an inconspicuous affair, a two-tiered building nestled in an equally inconspicuous street in an established factory district. The downstairs was a factory floor, with workstations all adorned with large rolls of prepared cloths, the accompanying employees working sewing machines since the beginning of their shifts. Upstairs was off limits to the staff and the keys were held by Jackdaw and his cronies alone. It was spacious and open with functional room divides, though lacked comfort. Most of the floors were bare apart from patches of foreign rugs on walking areas to create an improvised carpet. Furniture was sparse, simple and wooden, most situated around a kitchen area. The kitchen itself was built around a large green iron cooker, a behemoth of a thing with numerous enamelled doors. Windows were few but made up in size for what they lacked in quantity, most grubby and in need of cleaning.

Piled in corners were goods, provisions and assorted randomness, mostly crated up or in trunks, most seeping into what constituted as a communal bedroom. Here, single iron bedframes lined the walls, a number still empty. Sleeping together built camaraderie, preached Jackdaw, though he himself had a room of his own, separated by a wooden beaded curtain making its interior difficult to see, as did his demand that nobody enter without his permission.

After a quick attempt at a wash, Cole stared at himself in a fractured mirror, towelling himself down. His eyes hung heavy, bagged from when good sleep had eluded him. Finding Jackdaw had granted little time for rest and the places where he gained some were not places one willingly would relax in. Remarkably, last night was the most comfortably he had rested in the last couple of months, which was no doubt why he felt such animosity at being woken in such a detestable fashion.

‘So what’s the plan for today?’ Cole enquired, met by Alvina who took to the sink to fill a glass of water. She consumed a mouthful and reached under the countertop, before offering him a cast-iron pan that was well used and alarmingly heavy. ‘You’re on cooking duty. You best get a shake on – we’re hungry.’

‘You’re kidding right?’

She paused, almost surprised at the response. ‘I never joke when I’m hungry.’

The upcurl of Cole’s bottom lip prompted further explanation.

‘Look. It’s your first day so let me lay it out for you,’ she stated, expressing with her hands. ‘Are you familiar with what we actually do?’

‘No.’

‘Have you held up a bank before? Shaken down anyone for protection money?’

‘No.’

‘Muscled in on some territory owned by another?’

‘Well, no.’

‘Then you’ll need to learn all the things that we do. That means you get to start at the bottom, the very bottom. And the bottom, right here, is that kitchen around ten minutes ago.’

Cole stared, dumbfounded.

Jackdaw presented himself, loudly clearing his throat and spitting out the contents. The curtain fell back with a staggered rattle. He smelt the air and took in the serene silence of the early morn, calm, unbroken and all quite unacceptable.

‘Now I know there isn’t discord in the ranks so I’m baffled as to why I hear no breakfast being made.’

A chair was yanked out, squeaking across boards as it took his weight. A long, inquisitive forefinger checked his ears for debris. He yawned widely, like a lion would when sat among its pride.

‘The new blood is a little slow on the uptake, boss, sorry. No breakfast yet.’

‘Is this some sort of running joke on the new guy?’ Cole whined.

Jackdaw immediately glanced to Alvina. ‘I’m hungry. Does he know that we don’t joke about that?’

‘Oh, he knows.’

‘Good.’ Jackdaw turned back to Cole to add his own voice as encouragement. ‘Because we just don’t joke about that.’

Cole was a good cook. He knew this. Those he once called friends knew this, before he left them all behind. In fact, among them, Cole was always asked to organize the food as any other was dull in comparison to his talents. He could work a kitchen. Being moneyed, he was used to fine ingredients too: black bass from Surenth’s flanking oceans. Pink truffles from Eifera. Cruden gold wheat.

So it came as a surprise that he had to work under such restrictive conditions. It took some trial and effort to get to grips with the ancient monstrosity that passed for an oven. With enough wood, it harboured a fine fire, radiating great heat within its iron belly. The cuts of meat looked like a blind lumberjack had taken a saw to them. These details, just two of a score, made the affair a lot more tedious than it needed to be.

Damning his pride, Cole proceeded to lay thick strips of smoked bacon into a pan before breaking eggs into another. Immediately the room was swamped with the hearty smell of a good breakfast, a smell that set anybody up for the day’s hardships. Toast was made. Tomatoes fried. It was menial work, a fact that Cole was more than aware of, but he was also mindful that this was the first undertaking on a long road ahead.

And he was going to get his money no matter what pains he had to endure.

With stomachs full the Jackrabbits were far more content and considerably less grouchy. Jack began joking with those in his company and even Blakestone reined in his thorny complaints. Cole barely noticed, being that he was kept busy at the stove, doing nothing but preparing food, cooking food and inadvertently sweating into the food.